Chicken Heart

I was driving home from work this morning and I was listening to some old time radio shows. Suspense has always been a favorite of mine. Around Halloween, Radio Classics on Sirius XM starts playing some classic “spooky” radio shows. One of the shows that almost always gets played is from Arch Obler’s “Lights Out” – Chicken Heart.

I became familiar with the Chicken Heart as a kid, but it wasn’t because of the show. I knew it as a classic comedy bit from Bill Cosby’s 1966 Wonderfulness Album.

This, along with many other Cosby albums, was something that my dad and I used to listen to all the time. In Cosby’s bit, he talks about being left home while his parents went out. He was supposed to stay in his room, but he would leave the room and listen to scary shows on the radio. He used the Chicken Heart as his example.

The original bit from Lights Out is only about 8 minutes long. Honestly, it’s not that scary. It’s actually kind of silly. Cosby, however, takes the bit and makes it hilarious. As someone who was more familiar with the Cosby version, when I heard the original on Sirius XM, I remember thinking, “Wow! That was really the premise for a show!!”

There is some uncertainty as to the date of the original broadcast, some say 1937 and some say 1938. Here for your listening pleasure is Chicken Heart from Lights Out ….

Now, compare it with the much funnier version as presented by Bill Cosby…

As I listened back to this bit before writing this post, it made me think of all the great comedy albums we used to listen to growing up. So many laughs ….